


Ghosts

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [43]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Oneshot, domestic!kastle, kastle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 08:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13267419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: Frank can sleep, now





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Posted on Tumblr, October, 2016

Frank Castle is a haunted man, yes. There are ghosts that haunt him everyday. They walk with him down the street, they watch as he pulls the trigger, they sit with him when he has breakfast.

His ghosts used to follow behind his family. Now, however, Maria, Lisa and Frank Jr. stood on a spot of their own. Not so present, but were always there.

But Frank could, yes, find moments where the ghosts went away.

Rescuing Max was one of those moments. When he busies himself with taking care of him, with training him and making sure the traumas from the fighting days faded, he gets a little peace.

Being with Karen is another one. With her, there’s silence in his head, finally.

He didn’t even notice it at first. It was just when he caught himself thinking about her in his cell, accepting to take the stand on his trial just because it was important to her, stopping by at her place to explain that it wasn’t him who shot up the DA’s office, when he caught himself  _flirting_  with her at that diner, when he sent her away right before he killed Schoonover because it was too dangerous and because she distracted him. She made him see beyond the hate, the agony that was his life.

Karen Page was dangerous to Frank Castle.

Karen Page is dangerous, period. Only, to him, the kind of threat she posed was a very particular one.

Proof of that is that, one year later, after months and months of no contact, she crossed his path again - or he crossed hers, it’s hard to keep track of those things. Maybe he sought her out, maybe she beckoned him, maybe, maybe, maybe.

The point is, there they were again. Together. Having coffee and meeting up at diners, investigating. Working together, Planning, trading information, sharing sources and, generally, looking out for each other.

Then, he was getting shot, as he would, but she was insisting he came by her place, to let her take a look. Or she’s going with him to Harlem, where Claire patches him up and scolds him for this or that. He’s sitting on her floor, cleaning her gun while she puts a mug of coffee in front of him, reading the information he had asked for out loud.

“Who is this guy, anyway?” she asks. And he deflects at first, but then he shares, because she’s not a kid. She’s a grown woman, and she’d find out, anyway. He might as well be the one to tell her.

Then, she’s watching Max for him when he has to get out of town for a week or two. And then he is spending the night on her couch. Then he has a key to her place, just in case he needs a place to crash or she needs him there and can’t get to the door.

Just in case.

Suddenly, she’s buying the coffee he likes, and his prefered beer. Suddenly the gun on his holster is her 380, his is back at her place, he must have taken it by mistake. Suddenly there’s a bullet proof vest hanging with her dresses and two or three of his shirts and a pair of his jeans on her dresser, on the bottom drawer, where she keeps her own jeans.  

His ghosts are quieter when he’s with her. They let him sleep. They let him relax enough to be comfortable in her space.

And comfortable he got. Comfortable enough to not freak out when the air got heavier one night and her eyes sustained his for more than the usual time, when she leaned into him and touched his lips with hers. Instead, he opened his mouth and turned his body towards her on the couch, catching the back of her head with his hand, keeping her there for him to kiss.

Before, he would have pulled away. Figured it was dangerous, he was a monster and she was a princess, but, honestly, no. She had told him, time and again, that he was not a monster or a psycho murderer and that she could take care of herself.  

Frank’s choosing to believe her.

And so his ghosts let him be. Let him sleep.

He sleeps soundly on her bed, with her leg touching his, or with her back pressed to his chest, or when she’s at work and he got in just after she got out, with a text to let her knew he was there.

It was illicit, because he was a wanted man. They had to hide and sneak and be very careful, but it was also very good. Her apartment became a haven, a spot of light in the middle of the grime that stuck to this city, and he would to his best to protect it.

At Karen’s, his ghosts let him sleep. Hers, apparently, still bothered her from time to time.

Sometimes he would wake up to her moving by his side, her brow furrowed, her skin a little warmer than normal. Or she would wake with a start, with a cry, breathing deep, eyes looking for something that wasn’t there.

Frank would always wrap her in his arms, hand going up and down her back, trying to soothe. Karen would let him. She would lie on his chest or bury her face on the crook of his neck and breathe.

Once, she told him about a boyfriend, back in Vermont. How everyone thought he was the nicest, but he really wasn’t. And how she had put a knife against his throat and pressed until she drew blood, promising to kill him if he ever got near her again.

Frank told her he was proud of her, hugged her to him, turned them on their side and ran his fingers on her back until she fell asleep again.

A month or two after that, she told him how her brother had died, on a Friday morning when neither of them felt like leaving her bed, so she called in sick and spent the whole day with him. She cried a bunch, but also smiled a lot, telling him about their little adventures as kids.

“He tossed a rock on a boy’s head, once. Because the boy had tossed one on mine first, and I bled a lot. My new dress got stained. I cried more about the dress than my head, but he went and tossed the rock anyway”, she giggled.

“I feel like I’d have liked your brother.”

She turned to him and picked up his hand.

“Me too.”

That day, Frank told her about his first kill, on his first army tour.

And so they went. With confessions that never left that apartment, they spoke so their ghosts would quiet.


End file.
